The blockchain ecosystem gets shaken up with Symbol, the NIS1 evolution.

Interview with David Shaw, CEO of NEM Group, published originally on March 12th, 2021, on Bizgate (translated from Japanese).

NEM (New Economic Movement) is a project that seeks to create a new, decentralized, economic world using state-of-the-art blockchain technology. Its new platform, called Symbol, is a secure, efficient, and fast value-exchange network to fulfill a wide range of companies’ needs while working on its final goal — creating a new economy.

On March 17th, 2021, Symbol was launched as the next generation of blockchain technology. Right before the launch date, we caught up with Symbol’s CEO, David Shaw, to learn more about the NEM Group’s philosophy and where Symbol fits in.

You can also watch a video version of the interview here.

A world with a blockchain-enabled new economy offers countless opportunities for business. And since most of these opportunities are still emerging, it’s not a race for market-domination — all players have room to grow. We’re all working together to develop blockchain in our unique way. It’s the pioneer’s era for blockchain.

Unlike traditional IT systems or the current Internet, the blockchain world will be completely decentralized. This model will allow the ultimate economic activity democratization, allowing everyone to exchange value on an equal basis.

NEM Software provides a range of solutions to companies to effectively use cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. We are also undertaking our R&D to develop NEM’s services even further.

NEM Trading, as the name suggests, trades cryptocurrencies in the token marketplace. Through partnerships with fintech innovators, we’ve been promoting the use of XEM, the NIS1 blockchain cryptocurrency. We will also simultaneously promote XYM, a new cryptocurrency available once Symbol is launched as the next generation blockchain on March 15th.

NEM Ventures invests and nurtures startups that are or will be operating with blockchain technology. 

These three companies have complementary roles — the NEM Group bases these organizations’ premise on promoting blockchain development in a multifaceted and robust way. And since Japan is a significant part of all the NEM Group’s business activities, we focus on our Japanese users’ needs. That’s why we will be working on Symbol and NIS1 simultaneously to ensure its penetration into the Japanese market.

Symbol is available for both public and private use. It builds on the strengths of NIS1 and dramatically increases its flexibility, speed, ease of use, and security, making it ideally suited to businesses’ needs, including non-financial companies.

Of course. Our equity partner Wave Financial, a fintech solutions provider focused on SME businesses, has launched a bourbon whisky investment fund based on Symbol. The customer is a prestigious Bourbon whiskey producer in Kentucky, USA.

In recent years, whisky has become an investment. The whisky value can vary from year to year, depending on how good or bad the whisky is. Investors buy whisky by the cask, hoping that the price will rise when the whisky has matured for 10 or 20 years. By selling some or all of the whisky they have just made, the maker can gain working capital and, at the same time, hedge against price fluctuations.

Wave Financial plans to recruit investors to the fund and use their stake to buy casks for the distillery. The fund will have a quota of 25,000 units, which is about a year’s production worth. In turn, the investors will buy the whiskey’s value in the form of tokens, which they can hold and buy or sell at any time.

That’s right. Last year, the Bank of Lithuania began selling in NEM blockchain LB Coin, the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) — arguably the first of its kind in the world. 

Like in an earlier example for the whisky investment fund, we applied blockchain to market research for a sportswear giant. The client company had been paying tens of millions of dollars worth of market research every year to understand consumers’ preferences in different countries. Now, thanks to the use of blockchain, they no longer need to — sportswear manufacturers can gather information directly from consumers.

Consumers take part in the blockchain-enabled surveys by registering their preferences, such as color and style. The manufacturer economically rewards consumers for their participation. Consumers earn money by providing information, and manufacturers learn first-hand about market trends. Costs are also reduced as there is no need to go through a market research company.

As you can see, the NEM Group is taking on the challenge of adapting the blockchain to different companies’ needs, including the non-financial companies.

Good Crypto announced a new partnership with NEM with a focus on providing a more comfortable trading experience for XEM traders. The partnership results in more straightforward portfolio management for XEM users. They can use Good Crypto app for various use-cases. Good Crypto says that their partnership with NEM covers Symbol (XYM), too, and the new token will be added to portfolio managers at the time of launch.

Asset managing applications like Good Crypto play a vital role in the cryptocurrency community. They help you track the record of your tokens on demand and enjoy some trading opportunities, too.

Good Crypto is one of those applications that provides trading opportunities thanks to integrating 30 cryptocurrency exchanges. Their recent partnership with NEM is excellent news for XEM holders. They can now connect their wallets to Good Crypto and enjoy both asset management and trading opportunities.

NEM community members now have a comprehensive tool to manage their holdings and trade them with other cryptocurrencies. They can connect their exchange accounts very easily and trade XEM on demand.

According to the announcement , Good Crypto will support Symbol token XYM, too. It means XEM holders will receive and view their XYM tokens at the Good Crypto app. There are many options available for XEM holders in the Good Crypto app. Price alerts, portfolio management, programmable trade market overview, new listing alerts, and live order books are some of these options.

The collaboration between NEM and Good Crypto shows an excellent opportunity for NEM users who need a comprehensive portfolio management service. Good Crypto says about the partnership:

The trading option in Good Crypto is one of the best opportunities for NEM users. They can connect their accounts in 30 cryptocurrency exchanges and trade XEM very quickly. Good Crypto promises to add new trading features over time that help the NEM community trade easier. Options like automatic trading, price alerts, transaction alerts, market watch, and market summary notifications are some of the current services.

Partnerships between applications and cryptocurrency projects always lead to more adoption. When a coin is supported in an application or service, more users will be encouraged to adopt the new coin. The recent partnership between Good Crypto and NEM is not different. It will surely help both participants attract more users and grow faster.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin climbed on the charts and headed towards the $29,000 mark and the broader altcoin market followed suit and registered a surge in price. Polkadot was one such example, climbing nearly 12% in the past 24 hours. On the other hand, altcoins VeChain and NEM struggled to maintain positive returns and moved in the opposite direction.

While Polkadot has had a shaky start to the month,  prices have spiked along with the market leader Bitcoin during the past three days. Overall, the crypto asset has been in an uptrend since early November, hitting higher highs and higher lows. Currently, DOT is leading the charts as the biggest gainer in the past seven days, rising by nearly 70% in this period. The biggest question is – will we see a correction anytime soon? The indicators on DOT suggest otherwise, hinting that prices could continue to scale past milestones in the near future.

The Relative Strength Index indicated bullishness as prices have been trading in the overbought zone for quite some time now. Usually, prices move downwards after trading in this region, but in this case, they could remain in this territory over the next few sessions as the buying pressure mounts up. If a reversal takes place and the index moves lower, prices could test support at $7.65.

The Awesome Oscillator also highlighted the said bullishness, as the green bars were rising in length, above the Zero line.

Like Polkadot, VeChain has also been in an uptrend since early November. However, the price seemed to have cooled off since meeting resistance at $0.02. At the time of writing, VET was trading at $0.018, down by over 3% in the past 24 hours. Certain indicators suggest that selling pressure could continue to drive prices lower in the short term.

The MACD witnessed a bearish crossover, a sign that prices could fall in the coming future as the bears assert their dominance in the market. In case VET does fall, support at $0.0138 could provide some relief to prices.

The Chaikin Money Flow suggested that capital outflows were one of the factors responsible for the price drop, with the index moving downwards along with the prices.

NEM has been under severe selling pressure over the past 24 hours. During this time period, prices have dropped by nearly 15%, making NEM the biggest daily loser among the top 20 coins by market cap. After trying to breach resistance at $0.236, prices have steadily moved lower, towards the support at $0.169. In the near term, prices could continue moving lower and challenge support at $0.169. A sharper fall could see NEM head towards support at $0.141.

The On Balance Volume suggested that there has been a lack of interest in the NEM market as volumes dropped throughout mid-December.

The Parabolic SAR’s dotted markers were above the candlesticks, an indication that prices were bearish.

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A business graduate with a keen interest in emerging markets across South East Asia. As a financial journalist, he covered stocks and market reports across Australia and New Zealand as well.

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NEM (CURRENCY:XEM) traded up 3.7% against the U.S. dollar during the 1-day period ending at 13:00 PM ET on March 29th. One NEM coin can now be purchased for about $0.38 or 0.00000658 BTC on cryptocurrency exchanges. During the last week, NEM has traded down 1.2% against the U.S. dollar. NEM has a market capitalization of $3.44 billion and $266.95 million worth of NEM was traded on exchanges in the last day.

NEM Profile

NEM is a proof-of-importance (PoI) coin that uses the ProofofImportance hashing algorithm. Its launch date was March 31st, 2015. NEM’s total supply is 8,999,999,999 coins. The Reddit community for NEM is /r/nem and the currency’s Github account can be viewed here. The official message board for NEM is forum.nem.io. The official website for NEM is nem.io. NEM’s official Twitter account is @NEMofficial and its Facebook page is accessible here.

According to CryptoCompare, “Consensus Mechanism: Proof-of-ImportanceGenesis Date: March 31st, 2015Block Time: 1 minuteAvailable/Total Supply: 8,999,999,999 XEMBlock Reward: N/A (transaction fees only + node rewards) XEMXEM is the native currency of the NEM public blockchain. It is used to pay for transactions on this public blockchain in order to incentivize its network of public nodes that process and record transactions for businesses and users there. This means that XEM has real fundamental value as the currency of a functioning economy.HarvestingHarvesting is closely similar to mining in other cryptocurrencies, but it uses unique methods called Proof of Importance and Delegated Harvesting to determine who harvests the next block. Harvesting is necessary to keep the network online and to confirm transactions.Supernode ProgramSupernodes are high performance blockchain nodes which form the backbone of the NEM blockchain network. Accounts with 3,000,000 or more XEM can operate a supernode, either from a local computer or from a cloud-hosted server. Supernodes are required to be up and running 24 hours per day, processing all transactions.CatapultCatapult is a full-featured blockchain engine that can power both private and public networks with its unique smart contract plugins. These plugins enable bulletproof digital asset creation, decentralized swaps, advanced account systems and business logic modeling.In its next phase, Catapult will become the core NEM engine. Public chain Catapult has been in testing for three years to thoroughly troubleshoot bugs and implement features. Its expected release is in 2019.Proof-Of-ImportancePOI is the consensus algorithm used in NEM to determine who will calculate the next block. An account's importance is determined by how many coins it contains and the number of transactions made to and from that account. POI is different from other initiatives which use a fee-sharing model that does not take into consideration one's overall support of the network. In some proof-of-stake systems a person only needs to have large amounts of coins to form a block; however, in NEM the transaction amount as well as support of the network become a factor. This has been designed to encourage users of NEM to not simply hold NEM but instead actively carry out transactions within the NEM ecosystem.You can read more about NEM’s tech in the Technical Reference.     “

Buying and Selling NEM

It is usually not possible to buy alternative cryptocurrencies such as NEM directly using US dollars. Investors seeking to trade NEM should first buy Ethereum or Bitcoin using an exchange that deals in US dollars such as Changelly, Coinbase or GDAX. Investors can then use their newly-acquired Ethereum or Bitcoin to buy NEM using one of the aforementioned exchanges.

Thanks to Bitcoin’s price corrections on the 22nd, the last few days have been very bearish for most of the crypto-market. However, while the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been consolidating above $54,000 since, the same wasn’t true for the market’s altcoins, with the likes of Chainlink, UNI, and NEM continuing to lose value on the price charts.

It’s worth noting, however, that if Bitcoin surges again, the aforementioned alts’ price fortunes could change quickly.

Chainlink [LINK]

Chainlink, the cryptocurrency ranked 11th on CoinMarketCap, has been very inconsistent on the price charts since it hit its ATH a few weeks ago. In fact, while for a long time LINK took pride in moving independently of Bitcoin, of late, its movement has been dictated by BTC’s, with the same being the case over the last few days.

When BTC fell, so did LINK, with the alt dropping by over 9% in the last 48 hours. At the time of writing, LINK was once again trading at a level last seen in the first week of March.

While the Parabolic SAR’s dotted markers were well above the price candles and underlined the bearishness in the market, the Awesome Oscillator pictured the market’s momentum dipping into the negative territory.

The altcoin’s movements have been in line with those projected by a recent analysis, with the same predicting that LINK was likely to be pulled in one direction soon. Despite the said corrections, however, LINK can be expected to turn bullish again owing to a host of other factors.

Uniswap [UNI]

Uniswap [UNI], the crypto-market’s biggest DeFi token, has had a good few weeks and months, with UNI registering its ATH on the charts just under 48 hours ago. Since then, however, UNI has been on a downtrend, one spurred on by the general market’s bearishness. In fact, after registering an ATH of $35,88 on the charts, at press time, the alt had fallen by almost 13%.

The sharp drop in trading value was accompanied by an even sharper hike in trading volume.

UNI’s indicators flashed some interesting signs, but they weren’t credible enough to warrant talks of a trend reversal. While the mouth of the Bollinger Bands was widening to indicate some near-term volatility, the Relative Strength Index was pointing north towards the point of equilibrium.

With Uniswap V3 expected to release on the Ethereum mainnet sometime in May, UNI’s price action is likely to profit as soon as the correction wave passes.

NEM [XEM]

Following the 37.5% depreciation on the anniversary of Black Thursday, XEM’s price action has been very rangebound on the charts, with the altcoin a long way away from regaining its losses. In fact, if anything, the alt seemed to be heading in the opposite direction, with XEM falling by over 7.5% since the 22nd after Bitcoin registered corrections.

The cryptocurrency’s technical indicators didn’t leave room for a lot of optimism either as while the MACD line was intertwined with the Signal line, the Chaikin Money Flow, despite pointing north, was still below zero.

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Jibin is a news editor at AMBCrypto. With over three years of experience as a political writer, he primarily focuses on the political impact of crypto developments. A graduate in Law and International Relations, his writing is by and large focused on cryptocurrencies from the political and financial perspective. A Liverpool FC fan. YNWA

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NEM had positive momentum on the weekly chart, and it went up to $0.3980 on February 11, 2021, while breaking above the resistance zones created in the past. NEM price set a mark of 52 weeks high in today’s trading session. Meanwhile, the coin’s trading volume is $328,273,557 in the last 24-hour time-frame representing an increase in the value of 76.90%. The XEM/BTC pair is in an uptrend with a value of (0.000008428  BTC) which is up by 2.78% in today’s trading session.

The Nem group has announced that  Ledger’s Nano S and Nano X hardware will now facilitate the NEM token.Ledger is a global leader in securities of digital assets and the integration with it has pushed the price of NEM to higher levels.

The technical chart of NEM highlights “Bulls on run “ in today’s trading session. In contrast, the XEM price is at $0.3894. According to Fibonacci levels, the critical support level for NEM is placed at $0.335, whereas if it moves up, the critical resistance level to watch is $0.5. While diving into the daily chart, it is forming a bullish engulfing pattern while indicating the investor’s trust in the crypto asset.

Volume indicator with the value (31.38m) reflects a buying volume in the coin. Investors should inculcate more information with volume indicators.

EMA-200, price is at $0.1746, which acts as another strong support in the coin. The price is above the EMA, and investors can expect the continuation of the bullish trend in the coin.

RSI (Bullish):It is currently trading at a value of 78.93 indicates its presence in the overbought zone. A positive slope is formed in the RSI, showing that the price may move further up before seeing a downtrend.RSI can also reverse its position in upcoming trading days

NEM price seen a change of  8.71% on today’s trading session and the NEM/BTC pair has also seen a significant gain in the value. The integration of NEM with the Ledger could push it to the higher levels.Investors should do their due diligence before investing. 

Major Resistance:$0.5

Major Support:$0.335

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Dave Hodgson, CIO of NEM Group, commented, “We are excited that after 5.5 years of operating that NEM NIS1 now has Ledger support and that Symbol will be one of the few chains to have full Ledger support upon launch. The Ledger Nano S and Nano X wallets are market-leading and provide a secure and convenient one-stop-shop for crypto transactions. 2021 is an exciting year for the NEM ecosystem, so we’re excited to expand our community through increased access to XYM and XEM through Ledger’s user-friendly hardware wallets. I look forward to the ways we can deepen this collaboration in the near future.”

The Symbol by NEM and NIS1 Ledger hardware wallet implementations allow users to  securely hold XEM and XYM assets by owning and securing their private keys. With Ledger hardware wallets, private keys always remain offline protected in a certified secure chip. Users can use the Ledger Live application to download the NEM nano application and secure the XYM and XEM tokens on their hardware wallets.

Fabrice Dautriat, Head of Coin Integration at Ledger, commented, “The NEM team developed the NIS1 and Symbol applications in full autonomy using our SDK and documentation. We are happy to release their applications and offer best-in class security for these two projects.”

This announcement comes before the launch of Symbol, the next-generation enterprise-grade blockchain solution from NEM. Purpose-built to help businesses cut costs, reduce complexities, and streamline innovation, Symbol utilizes a unique hybrid (public/private) architecture with major upgrades in flexibility, security, speed and ease of use. NEM NIS1, NEM’s original blockchain platform, has had zero downtime, chain hacks, or major outages since its launch in 2014. NIS1 offers flexible and customizable solutions through simple, yet powerful, built-in features. The platform will continue to operate alongside the Symbol chain.

2021 is a significant year for the NEM ecosystem, with its first EU Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) secured and the first publicly committed Security Token to be issued on Symbol shortly.

For more information on the integration, ymbol-wallet

About NEM Group

NEM Group supports the development of Symbol from NEM, a trusted and secure enterprise blockchain that smooths business friction, increasing the flow of data and innovation to supercharge the creation, exchange and protection of assets. NEM Group comprises three separate entities: NEM Software, NEM Trading, and NEM Ventures. NEM Group shapes the future of blockchain by nurturing a strong and healthy ecosystem that will contribute to the development of blockchain technology for generations to come. www.nem.io

About Ledger

Founded in 2014, Ledger is a global leader in security and infrastructure solutions for critical digital assets and blockchain applications. Headquartered in Paris and Vierzon, with offices in London, New-York and Singapore, Ledger has a team of more than 150 professionals developing a variety of products and services to safeguard cryptocurrency assets for individuals and companies. This includes the Ledger hardware wallet line with more than 2 millions units already sold in 165 countries. www.ledger.com

The NEM Group — creators of the NEM NIS1 blockchain and XEM cryptocurrency — is launching today a new proof-of-stake public blockchain, Symbol, and native cryptocurrency XYM on the network. 

The Symbol blockchain, which was four years in the making, is an enterprise-grade blockchain that has emerged amid the growing trend towards interoperability and tokenization.

The new Symbol blockchain will run in parallel with the NIS1 blockchain, which was launched in 2015. 

“We’re looking to encourage interoperability and collaboration with the other blockchains. We’re not competing against them,” said David Mansell, chief operating officer at the Gibraltar-based NEM Group, in an interview with Forkast.News. “We want Symbol to be known as the chain to underpin what we call the new economy — using technology to create a fairer society that is more inclusive and accessible.”

The Symbol platform supports interoperability, with a hybrid chain architecture that allows users to deploy public and private chain use cases and trustless data flows across chains. Its application programming interfaces (APIs) is designed to facilitate easy integration with other systems and processes, and its on-chain, multi-layer, multi-signature accounts feature will enable companies to manage delegated financial authority requirements and streamline processes such as payroll, according to the NEM Group.

Symbol users will be able to create specialized digital assets, beyond tokens, to represent shares of stock, signatures, votes, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or other currencies on the blockchain.

“It’s going to be a disruptor of many industries, not just the finance industry, although that will likely be the main focus to start with,” Mansell said. “It is more accessible and allows everyone in the world to participate in this new digital economy.”

See related article: Guide to tokens and NFTs: what is ‘tokenization’ and how does it work?

An example of turning real-world assets into tokens is the Kentucky Whiskey Digital Fund — a security token issuance by regulated digital asset manager Wave Financial that will allow investors to purchase asset-backed tokens, created on NEM’s Symbol blockchain, linked to an estimated inventory of four million bottles of bourbon.

The value of whiskey can appreciate significantly — typically three to five times over five years — during its aging process, and tokenizing its ownership can give investors access to the illiquid asset without the hassle of buying barrels of whiskey. “Giving that accessibility and creating a secondary market means I can trade in and out of that token on my own. And I’ve just made a ‘liquid’ illiquid asset liquid again,” Mansell said.

According to BNP Paribas Securities Services, regulatory uncertainty is, at present, one of the biggest obstacles hindering the development of tokenization.

Cross-functional partnerships to cover technical and regulatory areas, Mansell says, can open the market into tokenization. Symbol’s ecosystem includes partners such as Wave Financial, which it has invested in, and Propine, a Singapore-based regulated issuance and custody platform for security tokens.

See related article: NFT mania: Are blockchain art and NBA crypto collectibles a fad or the future?

“What we are at NEM is an ecosystem,” Mansell said. “We want to be associated with professional partners, regulated, to the right degree, in the right jurisdictions, for people to find it easy to come and participate in this new economy. We are determined to be the enabler to that.”

See related article: How tokenization via blockchain can digitize assets and open up investment opportunities

The world’s first central bank-issued blockchain-based digital collector coin — LBCOIN — will transfer from NIS1 to Symbol to leverage its enterprise-grade functionality.

LBCOIN consists of six digital tokens and one physical collector coin. Collectors who had purchased LBCOIN received six digital tokens that they could exchange for a physical collector coin, store at the LBCOIN e-shop, send as a gift, swap with other collectors or transfer to a NEM public blockchain network (NEM wallet). 

“Digital money is inevitable in digital economy. Today, LBCOIN is what allows people in Lithuania and around the globe to test new technologies in a safe environment, e.g. go through all authentication procedures remotely, open an e-wallet, swap digital tokens with other collectors or transfer them to the public NEM network,” said Marius Jurgilas, member of the board of the Bank of Lithuania in a news release last July announcing LBCOIN’s launch. “At the same time, this also allows us to get the know‑how in issuing central bank digital currencies, which in turn should benefit the central bank community and the euro area as a whole.”

The Bank of Lithuania has issued 4,000 LBCOINs — or a total of 24,000 digital tokens and 4,000 silver collector coins — on NIS1. 

See related article: 4 central banks and BIS exploring CBDC bridge for Asia and Middle East

With the public chain launch of Symbol, the NEM ecosystem will now comprise two blockchains — NIS1 and Symbol. The NIS1 original code is being reviewed, updated and will be open-sourced. “NEM is a decentralized ecosystem. No one has the right, nor control, nor the power to decide whether NIS1 continues to live on or dies. That is the beauty of decentralization” Mansell said.

The price of XEM, the native cryptocurrency of the older NIS1 blockchain, was volatile in the lead-up to Symbol’s launch and fell over 40% from US$0.59 to US$0.33 on Mar. 12, the day of snapshot — a predetermined moment (at a block height of 3,105,500) when users’ XEM balance on NIS1 was recorded for an allocation (“air-drop”) for the new XYM tokens — as investors who had bought XEM to get an allocation of the new XYM sold XEM after the snapshot was complete. 

“Coins always pump before airdrop snapshots, and usually correct afterwards,” commented a user with the username “u/Findjin” in a forum about NEM on the online social network Reddit. 

Previously top 10-ranked cryptocurrency by market cap, XEM now ranks at 31, trading at about US$0.37, with a market cap of US$3.3 billion as of publishing time. XEM started the year trading around US$0.20.

See related article: How blockchain is transforming the investing and securities industry

Beyond use cases, NEM is also looking to expand its geographical footprint. NEM enjoys strong support in Japan and has plans to also grow its community in South Korea and China, Mansell said.

More recently, NEM announced a partnership with Nikkei Sangyo Kokokusha, part of the Nikkei Group, to support the launch of Symbol. Earlier this month, NEM also announced that it had joined the Blockchain Collaborative Consortium (BCCC), an industry group promoting blockchain in Japan.

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The team behind the New Economy Movement blockchain, the NEM Group, have launched a new, business-enterprise-facing project today called Symbol.

Symbol is a proof-of-stake blockchain with its own token (XYM) the NEM Group is marketing as an enterprise blockchain solution for fintech, supply chains and everything in between. On Symbol’s public blockchain, PoS validators can stake a supernode with their XYM or stake their tokens in another supernode’s pool.

“We believe we are going to see a lot of flexibility in how people use these private and public networks together. You can think of your private network as something of staging area and platform for public network. We’re excited to see what comes out of that,” NEM Software CTO Kristy-Leigh Minehan told CoinDesk.

The platform will allow business to launch their own private blockchains, which can interoperate with Symbol’s public chain. Additionally, the NEM team told CoinDesk, Symbol will support “atomic swaps” to transfer data and coins between different blockchains.

Atomic swaps are an old cryptographic trick that originated from Bitcoin which allow two blockchains to transfer data (typically, a coin) without the need for an intermediary to escrow the trade.

NEM’s Symbol can accommodate the hot DeFi applications of Ethereum fame and the rest like securities tokens and NFTs, Minehan said, using tokens called mosaics. She said that one Kentucky whiskey company has used these mosaics to tokenize barrels of whiskey that only approved buyers can purchase.

For something like NFTs, Minehan said that the next step is “having a digitization of the underlying asset [like a jpeg] embedded in the transaction itself,” which requires storing a significant amount of data on-chain.

NEM is also generally focused on making Symbol “the platform for tokens out in the space,” she said (emphasis hers), be they NFTs, whiskey barrels, CBDs, or stablecoins, and she emphasize that the team’s focus with Symbol will be trying to bridge the public-private blockchain gap.

It’s been just revealed that the team behind the New Economy Movement (NEM) blockchain, the NEM Group launches a new business-enterprise-facing project that is called Symbol.

This is a proof-of-stake blockchain with its very own token (XYM), which the NEM Group is marketing as an enterprise blockchain solution for fintech, supply chains and all that there’s in between.

On Symbol’s public blockchain, PoS validators are able to stake a supernode with their XYM; they can also stake their tokens in another supernode pool.

“We believe we are going to see a lot of flexibility in how people use these private and public networks together. You can think of your private network as something of staging area and platform for the public network. We’re excited to see what comes out of that,” NEM Software CTO Kristy-Leigh Minehan told CoinDesk.

— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) March 15, 2021

The same online publication also notes that the platform will be allowing the business to launch their own private blockchains, and this can interoperate with Symbol’s public chain.

More than that, the NEM team told CoinDesk that Symbol would be supporting atomic swaps in order to transfer data and coins between various blockchains.

The same online publication notes that atomic swaps are an old cryptographic trick that originated from Bitcoin, which allow two blockchains to transfer data without having the need for an intermediary to escrow the trade.

We suggest that you check out more data in the original article posted by CoinDesk in order to learn all the available details.

We have been addressing the need for atomic swaps in the crypto space for a long time.

As we already pointed out more than once, atomic swaps are the viable solution to prevent shutting down XMR.

Even back in 2019, we were highlighting the importance of atomic swaps, revealing that Monero and other privacy coins have to integrate the ability to atomic swap without the need for centralized exchanges.

“Atomic swaps imply the fact that transactions and trading from one currency to another are made are extremely high speeds without the need for validation coming from third parties,” according to previous notes.

Since the last week of February, the association between Bitcoin and Tezos has been increasing. However, as the end of Read more

The majority of the altcoin industry was that as a result of Bitcoin's turnaround and recent attempt to break through Read more

At the time of publication, Dash was trading at $214.5-resistance. Tezos pointed at a potential upward breakout from $4.5. XRP Read more

For the next few sessions, FTX Token was expected to consolidate between $38.7 and $35.08. Meanwhile, the altcoins NEM and Read more

Tezos is no longer in the same league as the crypto industry's giants in terms of market capitalisation. Interestingly, despite Read more

Algorand was projected to fall into the $1 mark, while DigiByte could reclaim its 50% Fibonacci retracement level as a Read more

At the time of publication, the majority of the altcoin industry was bleeding as a result of Bitcoin's recent price Read more

Since passing over the upper trendline, Elrond negated a falling triangle. Polkadot seemed unsure of breaking through the $38.2 support Read more

Monero was limited below the $238.6-resistance. After the late-February pullback, SNX has shown signs of improvement. Tezos offered an upside Read more

While the cryptocurrency market saw a significant price increase over the weekend, it was quickly followed by a series of Read more

Although Neo attempted to reclaim the 50% Fibonacci retracement mark, NEM sought a lifeline at $0.325-support. Tezos losses were cut Read more

In a bullish result, Dash posed a $278 upside, while WAVES threatened to fall below its 23.6 percent Fibonacci mark. Read more

Bitcoin SV approached a level of resistance with bullish momentum and looked to break out to the upside, at press time. NEM also showed promise as it gathered strength just under its own level of resistance. Finally, Verge had strong bullish momentum but lacked trading volume at the time of writing.

A few days ago, BSV formed a local high at $240 but selling pressure forced the coin lower on the charts. It tested the 38.2% retracement level at $204 and support, but over the past few days, BSV has recovered well.

It established a steady uptrend and had strong momentum as it approached the region of resistance from $230-$236. The Directional Movement Index showed both the ADX (yellow) and +DI (blue) rising, underlining a strong uptrend. The OBV also rose steadily to show that buying volume outweighed selling volume.

At the time of writing, BSV was trading at $237 and looked likely to break out to the upside on this second attempt. Trading volume has been consistent, but not heavy and would need to pick up to validate BSV’s breakout to the upside.

The RSI highlighted strong bullish momentum as XEM traded around the $0.41-mark. Over the past two weeks, XEM saw quick gains of 20-25% followed by a few days of sideways trading, and this pattern is likely to repeat to effect a move beyond the $0.43-$0.445 region.

The Stochastic RSI was heading lower on the charts – the gains XEM made in steps were followed closely by the rapid rise of the Stochastic RSI too, making this indicator one to keep an eye on to enter the next move.

The 20-period moving average (white) on the 4-hour chart was moving under the price and highlighted strong bullish momentum. The Chaikin Money Flow was also above +0.05, underlining the net capital flows into the market and highlighting buyer dominance.

The Gann fan (yellow) pointed to a potential area of support, should the $0.028-level of resistance reject XVG.

The path highlighted by the cyan could be a scenario for XVG in the event of rejection, while a breakout past $0.028 would mean that the next level of significant resistance for bulls would be at $0.033.

EOS, SUSHI, Compound Price Analysis: 13 February

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Having studied Chemical Engineering, Akashnath's focus is on the UK and Indian markets and especially crypto assets. He is devoted to technical analysis and is always on the lookout for investment opportunities.

Polkadot, Ontology, Bitcoin SV Price Analysis: 21 February

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Tron, Aave, Verge Price Analysis: 18 February

Chainlink, NEM, Enjin Price Analysis: 16 February

Cardano, Bitcoin SV, Algorand Price Analysis: 15 February

Bitcoin SV, BAT, Compound Price Analysis: 11 February

The last few days have been very bearish for the majority of the crypto-market, thanks to Bitcoin’s price corrections on the 22nd. Although the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been consolidating over $54,000 since, the same has not been so for the market’s altcoins, with the likes of Chainlink, NEM, and UNI continuing to lose value on price charts.

It is worth noting, though, that if Bitcoin spikes again, the price fortunes of the above alts could change rapidly.

Chainlink [LINK]

Chainlink, the 11th most valuable cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap, has been very volatile on the price charts since it reached its all-time high a few weeks ago. In reality, while LINK took pride in travelling independently of Bitcoin for a long time, its movement has recently been dictated by BTC, with the same being the case over the last few days.

When BTC fell, so did Connection, which fell by more than 9% in the last 48 hours. LINK was selling at a pace last seen in the first week of March at the time of publishing.

While the Parabolic SAR’s dotted markers were just above the price candles, emphasising the market’s bearishness, the Awesome Oscillator depicted the market’s momentum slipping into negative territory.

The altcoin’s movements have been aligned with those expected by a recent study, which predicted the Connect will be pushed in one direction soon. Despite the aforementioned corrections, Relation is supposed to turn bullish again due to a number of other factors.

NEM [XEM]

Following a 37.5 percent drop on the anniversary of Black Thursday, XEM’s market activity has been very rangebound on the charts, with the altcoin already a long way from recouping its losses. In fact, the alt seemed to be going in the opposite direction, with XEM dropping by more than 7.5 percent since the 22nd after Bitcoin corrections.

Although the MACD line was entangled with the Signal line, the Chaikin Money Flow was still below zero, despite pointing north.

Uniswap [UNI]

Uniswap [UNI], the crypto-largest market’s DeFi coin, has had a successful few weeks and months, with UNI reaching its all-time high on the charts just under 48 hours ago. UNI, on the other hand, has been in a downtrend since then, driven by the general market’s bearishness. In fact, after reaching an all-time high of $35,88 on the charts, the alt had dropped by nearly 13% as of press time.

The dramatic decline in trade value was followed by an even sharper increase in trading volume.

UNI’s metrics showed some intriguing signals, but they weren’t convincing enough to suggest a pattern turnaround. Although the Bollinger Bands were expanding, indicating any near-term instability, the Relative Strength Index was pointing north, towards the point of equilibrium.

With the arrival of Uniswap V3 on the Ethereum mainnet scheduled in May, UNI’s price activity is likely to benefit as soon as the correction wave passes.

On March 15, 2021, NEM will be launching the Symbol public blockchain. There is a lot to know when it comes to migrating the user account from NEM NIS1 to Symbol, including Opt-in, Snapshot, and the opportunity to participate in XYM.

By opting-in, XEM holders will obtain an XYM balance equal to that of their XEM balance at the time of Snapshot.

To Claim XYM per the NEMplatform users need to know the following:

“Opt-in is the process every XEM account holder must follow to receive their XYM tokens on the Symbol public blockchain when it launches. To participate in XYM, you first need to own XEM and then make a conscious action to Opt-in as outlined below. This will result in you receiving XYM. If you do not participate in Opt-in you will not receive XYM. Whether or not you choose to Opt-in, your XEM will not be affected, as will the NEM NIS1 network.

NEM walletshave been updated to include a Symbol Opt-in module, which will make it simple to Opt-in via your NEM account. You will need to download a new NEM wallet from the list below. To Opt-in via a mobile device, you will need to download a Symbol mobile app (available in Android and iOS).

Snapshotis the state of XEM accounts (balances, configuration and namespaces) on the NEM NIS1 blockchain at a certain block height. For each 1 XEM you own at the time of Snapshot, you will be allocated 1 XYM to the Symbol account you created during the Opt-in process.”

Several exchanges have supported Symbol Opt-In so far.  Binance, Upbit, bitFlyer, Huobi Global, OKEX, DMMBitcoin, Coincheck, KuCoin, Coinspot, XT.com, EXMO, CoinDCX, HitBTC, BiTMart, HBTC, Poloniex, Zaif, are just a few to name from the long list of exchanges.

For clarity, those who own XEM on the NEM NIS1 blockchain, will receive an equal amount of XYM on Symbol blockchain. They will also be able to keep all of their XEM.

XYM will enable users to participate fully in the new Symbol blockchain. Without XYM, users will not be able to use the Symbol blockchain.

Users will be able to Opt-in for up to 6 years after Symbol launches and receive the same balance in XYM as they did hold in XEM at Snapshot. 

Also, users need to know about the VRF keys (Verifiable Random Function) are a needed part of the harvesting process. They ensure that it’s impossible to predict which account will harvest the next block. They are used as part of an approach to avoid deterministic harvesting (where it is possible to predict and attack the node that is due to harvest next) by making node selection verifiably random. 

You need to create VRF keys if you intend to harvest the first block after Symbol is launched.  You can add harvesting to your Symbol account any time after launch by linking your account to a VRF key.